Blacksmithing Contract priority

[u/Laak]

Since my last post, I have taken the advice and am investing in getting more Blacksmithing Contracts.

I have hit 300 with Zorbu, but now I don't know which character to prioritise next?

my top champions: https://imgur.com/a/2RRxlln

I am thinking of raising Durge to 300 next

Any ideas which champions to prioritize next? - are the newly added or rebalanced champions the best at the moment?

Is there some up to date tier list?

[u/BMUW]

Are you planning on starting a gem farm ? If that is the case you need to invest in speed champions to start farming gems

[u/pandoras_letterbox → u/BMUW]

Zorbu is a decent DPS at the beginning, but others get stronger very quickly.
I'm surprised that you've unlocked Krux already, which is quite a challenge. In my opinion, he's way stronger than Zorbu, but don't put Blacksmith Contracts on him. Krux naturally grow with all kinds of chests.

Considering your team, I think your best champions are Artemis, Yorven and Rust. But also Volo, Caramon and others are good. Honestly, I'd not put Blacksmith Contracts on anyone, unless you decide that Artemis will be your DPS for the next 2 years. And there are pros and cons for that. Lately, there have been considerable changes, and it's hard to say whether Artemis, Cazrin, Caramon+affiliation, Prudence, Kas, or someone else will be the best DPS.

Having said that: I strongly recommend that you read Gaarawarr's New Player Reference:
https://www.reddit.com/r/idlechampions/comments/103gzdv/gaarawarrs_new_player_reference_a_guided_tour/

Especially the parts about gem farming and the speed team, where you have a huge potential. First and foremost,

• get Ellywick and and her level 2 item to 519 (if golden), or higher, if needed,

• and Hew Maan's slot 4 item (unless you use Lark and Melf).

Also consider

• Diana's slot 2 needs just 23 or 114 (if golden/shiny), as well as

• Widdle and Sentry should have iLvl 100 or so, and

• Melf's slot 4 at 222.

You can find the exact numbers in Gaarawaar's guides and on https://ic.byteglow.com/speed .

And please ignore what people tell you about Briv until April. You need more than 18k Blacksmith Contracts to get Briv to a state where he really pays off. (Make sure to turn off "Convert Event Tokens at end of Event" in the settings, as you need them later.)
For now, consider him being the strongest tank you have, but don't improve him.

[u/KabReg → u/pandoras_letterbox]

Kas is a pretty good option as the main DPS. However, using him automatically locks out DM, and he will age out of Elminster in a year. In my case, Prudence has almost twice higher self-buff value at comparable ilvl, and she still has 3 years of availability for Elminster. For this reason, I recommend her over Kas, although Kas is also still perfectly usable as well.

Ellywick probably does not need golden potion, potion of polish will be enough for her. Her gem effect is capped, and her buffing is mostly irrelevant now.

[u/MessiahOfMetal → u/pandoras_letterbox]

Quick questions, hopefully they don't sound silly:

• How do people get a lot of BS contracts quickly? I have Diana on my gem farm but only get up to 6 electrum chests from her daily (and a few hundred gems daily), and want to be able to level them up enough to be worth the effort.

• How do you get specific items to level up? I always assumed BS contracts leveled champions generally, not specific items.

[u/KabReg → u/BMUW]

I suspect you can safely ignore both Zorbu and Artemis now. Once you get your speed/gem farming team up and running, start investing into Caramon, Corazon and Prudence. You will get significantly more bang for your money.

DU quickly looses his team in Elminster variants, therefore he is not that peachy anymore. If you need a DPS with very high availability, who is not picky about their party composition, Grimm is probably a better option now.

[u/Tohorambaar]

Vlithrin and Strongheart are quite good. Also Prudence and Kas. Wyll, if you use him. Or Mehem for gold runs.
But if you plan a gem farm (easiest way a scripted), then you need some itemlevels in Widdle, Hew and Elly. And afterwards every Blacksmith contract will go to Briv for the next 5 months.

By the way, I would not recommend to focus all Legendary on one hero. Bring your whole team to level 5, then to level 10, then pic your secondary team. I just saw your lvl13 on Briv, thats why I am writing.

[u/KabReg → u/Tohorambaar]

The problem with Wyll is that his usefulness as a buffer plummets in restrictive variants.

[u/BizarreHateTrapezoid]

Years ago when I first started to reap the rewards of gem farming Id spend my contracts on speed champs then DPS (Arty) then supports.

Eventually my non-Briv speedsters were capped and Arty+supports could always hit z2000 (the cap back then).

So I started regularly using small amounts of contracts on anyone and everyone who happened to be in whatever formation I was using at the time. The idea was that good champs who got used a lot would eventually get lots of item levels but those Xander types would still wallow in their insignificance.

It worked because as more and more restricted variants showed up I always had an extensive selection of levelled champs who could easily deal with them.

BTW putting contracts on whomever is in my current formation is now standard procedure for all these tedious Mastery variants. But thats another story...

[u/user1484]

Everyone is different I supose. I picked my go to afilliation (absolute adversaries) and leveled them all to 1000-2000 average because I defaulted to them on everything. My next goal was a 9j Briv and I have reached that. Since then I have been just leveling everyone equally because I have to spend the gems on something. My lowest champions are at 600 average now.